Disposed

The Indian Newspaper Society v. Alphabet Inc. and Others

CCI22 Feb 202210/2022

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The Competition Commission discussed an Information filed against Google entities alleging Section 4 contraventions. It decided to club the matter with an ongoing investigation under Section 26(1) proviso, refusing to order an investigation on search transparency allegations due to lack of substantiation.

What did the court decide?

The Information was clubbed with Case No. 41 of 2021; no investigation ordered on allegations of lack of transparency in search results due to lack of material on record.

The Indian Newspaper Society Vs. Alphabet Inc. and Others — Company and Corporate | CCI (2022)

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COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA

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22.02.2022

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Case No. 10 of 2022

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In Re:
The Indian Newspaper Society	Informant
AND
Alphabet, Inc.	Opposite Party No. 1
Google LLC	Opposite Party No. 2
Google India Private Limited	Opposite Party No. 3
Google Ireland Limited	Opposite Party No. 4
Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd	Opposite Party No. 5

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ORDER

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The present Information has been filed by the Informant, under Section 19(1)(a) of the Competition Act, 2002 (‘ Act ’) against the Opposite Parties alleging contravention of the provisions of Section 4 of the Act.

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The Commission considered the Information in its ordinary meeting held today and noted that the subject matter of the allegations made in the instant Information is substantially the same with the subject matter under examination before the Director General (‘DG’) in an ongoing investigation in Case No. 41 of 2021. Accordingly, in terms of proviso to Section 26(1) of the Act, the Commission decided to club the present matter with Case No. 41 of 2021. Resultantly, the DG is directed to investigate the present matter also along with Case No. 41 of 2021 and submit a consolidated investigation report in the matters, subject to the observations made in the succeeding paragraph.

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Case No. 10 of 2022

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It is noted that one of the allegations of the Informant relates to lack of transparency in search results. The Informant has alleged that search results are displayed based on predetermined algorithm and not on the basis of relevance of the content, resulting in lack of level playing field amongst various publishers. However, the Informant has not placed any material on record to substantiate these allegations. In such a scenario, neither any prima facie opinion can be formed, nor investigation be ordered on this count.

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The Secretary is directed to send a copy of this order along with the Information to the Office of the DG forthwith. Further, a copy of this order may also be sent to the parties through counsel by e-mail for information.

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Sd/- (Bhagwant Singh Bishnoi) Member

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Sd/- (Sangeeta Verma) Member

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Sd/- (Ashok Kumar Gupta) Chairperson

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Case No. 10 of 2022

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The Indian Newspaper Society v. Alphabet Inc. and Others

Case brief

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The Indian Newspaper Society v. Alphabet Inc. and Others

Case brief

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